The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Good evening. I'm Elizabeth Farnsworth. Jim Lehrer is on vacation. On the NewsHour tonight, is a peaceful transition possible in Zaire, we have a report and a Newsmaker interview with U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Bill Richardson; plus the week's politics with Mark Shields & Paul Gigot, water and politics in Western Colorado, and a documentary look at modern motherhood. It all follows our summary of the news this Friday. NEWS SUMMARY

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson said today he believes there is a non-violent transition in the works in Zaire. Richardson has just returned from nine days of shuttle diplomacy in Africa and France. In a NewsHour interview he said South African and U.N. mediators are having some success in working out a deal for passing power from President Mobutu to rebel leader Kabila.

BILL RICHARDSON, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.: I believe that Mobutu will return to Kinshasa before he heads for the Congo. He's getting support. I believe he's putting his affairs in order. But eventually I do believe there's still a good chance of a peaceful, inclusive transition government.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: We'll have the rest of that interview with Amb. Richardson right after the News Summary. The stock market had a mixed reaction today to remarks about inflation and interest rates made last night by Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped a fast 50 points this morning, dropped off later, and closed up nearly 33 points, at 7169.53. Greenspan spoke last night at New York University's School of Business. He said the Federal Reserve raised interest rates in March to provide stability for the economy, which has been expanding for six years.

ALAN GREENSPAN, Chairman, Federal Reserve: That expansion has been fostered by the maintenance of low inflation. But the persisting, indeed, increasing strength of nominal demand for goods and services suggested to us that monetary policy might not be positioned appropriately to avoid a build-up of inflationary pressures and imbalances that would be incompatible with extending the current expansion into 1998 and hopefully beyond.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The Federal Reserve Board next meets on May 20th to decide whether to make any further adjustment in the interest rates. In Costa Rica today President Clinton praised that country as a model of environmental protection in Latin America. He did so during a visit to one of Costa Rica's rain forests, where he also signed a series of environmental agreements with President Figueres. The country's promised to share electrical vehicle technology and biodiversity charting software, among other things. Mr. Clinton spoke before the signing.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: We are seeking to build a world where people live in the 21st century in harmony, not at war with each other, and they recognize that they have more in common than what divides then, when they no longer seek to elevate themselves by demeaning other people. That kind of world will only occur if we are also generous, wise, and good to our natural environment, and where we do not expect today's growth to threaten tomorrow's survival. That is my commitment. That is Costa Rica's commitment. Let us make sure we realize it.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Clinton also took a helicopter tour of the 500 square miles Braulio Carrillo National Rain Forest Preserve. Tonight he will fly to the island of Barbados for a Caribbean summit and a few days of vacation. The first post war United States Ambassador to Vietnam arrived in Hanoi today. Former Congressman Douglas "Pete" Peterson was greeted by Vietnamese war veterans, businessmen, and American expatriates. Peterson was a prisoner of war in Vietnam for six and a half years. He spoke at Hanoi's International Airport.

PETE PETERSON, U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam: Our highest national priority is to advance the fullest possible accounting of persons missing from the war. America and Vietnam have put that conflict behind them, but finding out what happened to the missing is an urgent task for their families and for the nation that they honored.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: In Venice, Italy, a takeover of the Bell Tower in historic St. Mark Square ended today as the man who rented a Ryder truck from him in April 1995. Prosecutors said McVeigh filled the truck with explosives and blew up the Murrah Federal Building two days later. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to Ambassador Richardson on Zaire, a western water project fight, Shields & Gigot, and a look at some modern mothers. NEWSMAKER

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: We start tonight with a Newsmaker interview with President Clinton's special envoy to Zaire, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Bill Richardson. I spoke with him earlier this evening. He returned to New York last night from nine days of shuttle diplomacy, which included meetings with President Mobutu Sese Seko and rebel leader Laurent Kabila. Kabila's forces now control about 3/4 of the country and are advancing on the capital, Kinshasa. The rebels are demanding Mobutu's resignation. He has refused to resign, but yesterday he did say he would not run for re-election because he's been weakened by prostate cancer. Charles Krause has more.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Yesterday, a regional summit in Gabon between Mobutu and a group of other French-speaking African presidents ended with a call for peace. Wearing his trademark leopard-skinned cap, Mobutu and host President Omar Bongo of Gabon walked hand-in- hand to the presidential palace. Despite the fanfare, however, the mood was somber. Heavy fighting continued near Kinshasa. And U.S. military ground forces based in Congo prepared for a possible evacuation of expatriates living in Zaire.

SPOKESMAN: We bring about a hundred marines forward now and they would be the first troops that would go in if we need to do an evacuation and we also have some people here that would be manning the refugee control center, the evacuation control center to help the refugees.

CHARLES KRAUSE: In Paris, after a nine day long diplomatic mission in Africa, U.S. envoy Bill Richardson met with top officials to brief them on his efforts to negotiate a solution to the Zaire crisis.

BILL RICHARDSON, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.: I came to France, our oldest ally, because of her historic and important role in Africa to discuss where we should go in dealing with the crisis. We believe that there must be no military solution to the political and economic crisis in Zaire.

CHARLES KRAUSE: The diplomatic whirlwind came after talks last weekend sponsored by South Africa failed to produce an agreement between Mobutu and rebel leader Kabila. Last Saturday, the U.S. State Department urged Americans in Zaire to leave, citing the "deteriorating security and political situation" and the "potential for unrest throughout the country." Then on Tuesday, Mobutu boarded his private Boeing 727 for Gabon. His departure fueled speculation that the ailing dictator might not return, although his intentions still remained unclear this afternoon.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Joining us now is Amb. Richardson. Thank you for being with us, Mr. Ambassador.

BILL RICHARDSON, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.: Glad to be with you, Elizabeth.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: You've been talking to all the principals in this in the past nine or ten days. Please help us understand where things stand right now. Is any part of a plan for a peaceful transition in place?

BILL RICHARDSON: I do think a peaceful plan is still in place. The South Africans headed by Mandela and the United Nations special envoy Sanoun have a plan that involves a transition structure that Mobutu and Kabila, I believe, still might accept. It's going to take another face-to-face meeting sometime next week, probably in the Congo in the middle of the week. A lot of shuttle diplomacy is going on between both sides, between the Francophone countries, that generally support Mobutu and some of the other states, the Anglophone states like Musavani and Uganda and others that are supporting Kabila. I don't think that a peaceful transition is dead yet. A lot of posturing takes place. At this very moment, I believe that Mobutu will return to Kinshasa before he heads for the Congo. He's getting support. I believe he's putting his affairs in order. But eventually I do believe there's still a good chance of a peaceful, inclusive transition government. I really do believe that.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Can you lay out for us how it would work?

BILL RICHARDSON: Well, in my judgment it will most likely be headed by Kabila. Obviously, he is not going to give that up, especially since he's militarily at a very strong advantage. I believe that the transition government will include representatives from various factions in Zaire. The big issue is going to be how much of Mobutu's people, if any at all, are part of that. What I think is also important is that Kabila, to get international support once he forms his government, is going to have to come into Kinshasa without bloodshed in a rather organized fashion, because there's American lives at stake; there's a lot of foreigners there, Belgians, French. I believe that too that Kabila is going to have to immediately address the refugee problem, which is very serious, allow investigations by the U.N. into those massacres, do something about punishing those soldiers involved in those massacres, and lastly, allowing for expatriation to take place, that right now because of a number of problems is not taking place as efficiently as it should. And that's why you have so many of these enormously difficult problems in that refugee component area of Kisangani and other parts of Eastern Zaire.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Let's back up just a minute. Under this rather optimistic plan, as you lay it out, President Mobutu would return to Kinshasa in order to finish up there, perhaps make a final speech to the nation, something like that?

BILL RICHARDSON: I would expect that Mobutu wants to leave gracefully. The United States supports that. We would like to see an inclusive transition government that avoids bloodshed. The issue is going to be what kind of representation from the various factions are going to be part of this government. The United States would like to see all of the factions represented so there is reconciliation in Zaire, but what I believe will be very difficult for Kabila to give up will be the dominant role within that transitional government. And that's what Mandela and the South Africans right now rather skillfully, in my judgment, are trying to put together. The United States supports this process. We're stepping back a little. We've put our full weight behind South Africa in these negotiations, and some of the states like Uganda and Tanzania that are supporting Kabila. We've pressed the Francophone countries to work with Mobutu, to let him go gracefully, but not to stick around much longer.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: So when the rebels say that they'll only settle for a direct transfer of power from President Mobutu to Laurent Kabila, who, as you have said, does have the military vantage, it seems, you're saying that's not a definite position that can't be changed; that they're still maneuvering and working out some way to make it easier than that sounds?

BILL RICHARDSON: I believe right now what is happening is very, very intensive diplomacy on the part of the South Africans with the United Nations. We should help that process. We do think that it's in everybody's interest for a peaceful transition to take place. That means the Angolans step aside also; they've got, unfortunately, some negative intentions in terms of moving their troops into Zaire to pay back Mobutu.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Explain that a little bit.

BILL RICHARDSON: Well, over the years Mobutu has not helped the Angola government. He has supported Jonas Zavimby, an UNITA rebel leader, try to basically take over, and the Angolan government which is in power now wants to pay him back, and they don't want to help Mobutu. They want him out militarily. That's our judgment.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: They actually moved some troops into Zaire, I've read. Is that true?

BILL RICHARDSON: Well, there's reports of that. We warned the Angolans and told them that this was a bad move, that let's respect the territorial integrity of Zaire, but what you see right now is the instability of Central America at stake. This is why it's important to America's interest, besides the humanitarian reasons. We're pressing for a peaceful transfer, rather than violence, rather than other countries moving in, rather than a number of unstable factors, and that very strategically important part of Africa.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Ambassador, I'm going to come back to that in a second, but tell us first, what was it like meeting with both President Mobutu and with Laurent Kabila?

BILL RICHARDSON: Kabila is a--he's very street smart. He's pragmatic. He's never covered anything--overwhelmed by the attention and the responsibility that it takes. I think that deep down there's a man that realizes that he has to behave more responsibly; that he has to send a message to his troops that they can't continue with some of these massacres; that he's got to deal with the refugee problem; and he's got to get international support. Mobutu, on the other hand, I believe was not facing reality. His advisers were not telling him that his military situation was in a bad condition; that he could still hang on. Unfortunately, I was the bearer of a lot of bad news, but, nonetheless, I believe that Mobutu is now realistic; he's a dignified person; he wants to go out gracefully. He is bitter at the United States and some of its other allies for not backing him, but the reality is that he's lost support in Kinshasa and throughout the country, and Kabila is moving very aggressively. And the best thing that can happen is a peaceful, inclusive transitional government that leads to election. This is what U.S. policy has been. This is what I was pushing in my envoy initiative that President Clinton wanted me to do. And hopefully, in the days ahead we will see a process that allows a peaceful, inclusive transition to take place, rather than Kabila coming in violently into Kinshasa and looting and other violence taking place in that city right now that is very thin and very fragile.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What are Kabila's troops doing right now?

BILL RICHARDSON: Well, right now, they're moving ahead. They're circling Kinshasa. They're moving into position. I believe that Kabila will allow these negotiations to take place before he moved his troops in a final push into Kinshasa. We pressured them very heavily to do that. But quite frankly, Elizabeth, he right now has the total upper hand militarily. I also believe that if he moves into Kinshasa, he will face very little resistance from Mobutu's troops. The people of Zaire are tired of fighting. They want it to end. They want to get into a situation where stability comes forth. And quite frankly, I believe that Kabilaright now, if he behaves responsibly, if he moves in peacefully, if he gets peaceful in the sense of an inclusive government and he deals with the refugees, the international community is going to give him a chance. But right now he has not made a good start by the way he has treated a lot of the refugee problems in Eastern Zaire.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: If this does not work out, as you laid out the possibilities, there are U.S. troops on hand to come in to rescue Americans in Kinshasa, is that right? How many U. S. troops, where are they, and what is their purpose?

BILL RICHARDSON: Well, we have various troops positioned around Central Africa. We have a ship out there that is ready to take this evacuation. There are 300 or so Americans in the Kinshasa area that we have to protect. We have a plan coordinating with other countries, other foreign nationals there. We hope we don't have to do that, but, if necessary, we're ready to do that. This is why it's critically important that a political settlement, a negotiated settlement, take place and that the entrance by Kabila into Kinshasa be a peaceful one; otherwise, there will be chaos and looting, a lot by Mobutu's troops. So I think the next few diplomatic days are critically important, and we should back the South Africans and Mandela. They've been very skillful; they've been very aggressive, along with the United Nations, to get both sides to accept an inclusive transitional government.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: On the international implications of this you've mentioned how many different countries--Zaire's bordered by nine countries--many of them are involved in this. Explain that for us. What are the implications of that, to have Uganda, Rwanda, Angola, all involved in one way or another in this battle, mostly on Kabila's side?

BILL RICHARDSON: Well, what is at stake is a lot of strategic interests, a lot of mining and economic interests in a very fertile and rich, strategic region. Secondly, you've got the potential of a huge refugee humanitarian crisis of enormous proportions unless some stability is brought. And thirdly, you have basically a battle between the Francophone countries in West Africa and the newly emerging Anglo countries headed by countries like Uganda and Tanzania and others that are emerging. What you don't want is both of them and all of them fighting each other in an unstable situation. So a lot is at stake. Zaire is the heart of this area. Zaire is one of the largest countries--most populated countries in Africa--with enormous resources. As goes Zaire goes Central Africa. This is why it's very important for there to be a stable end, rather than a violent end.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And already, speaking of the mineral resources, American and other companies are--have already actually signed deals with Kabila, right, for copper and cobalt and other- -other interests--

BILL RICHARDSON: That's correct.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: For the minerals.

BILL RICHARDSON: That's correct. Kabila is in control militarily, and he's in control of some of the economic and other energy resources, diamond resources. That's the reality. But that doesn't mean that America and France and some of these countries in Europe that have interest in Zaire shouldn't push as strongly as we can for a peaceful end, for a negotiated end, even though the military strength is clearly on one side. We do think that Mobutu deserves to have a peaceful transition. He is the leader of the country. He obviously has made a lot of mistakes. Our relationship with Mobutu has not been very strong over the past few years. But at the same time, Kabila must realize that if he is going to take over, he's got to be responsible; he's got to enter Kinshasa in a peaceful way; he's got to have market reforms; he's got to have elections. Otherwise, the international community, the World Bank, donor countries are not going to help him. And he's going to need that private investment and international assistance to survive, because literally Zaire right at this moment is falling apart.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: There have been reports, as you well know, and I think I read you had criticized Kabila for this; that the rebel troops headed by Kabila have massacred refugees in Zaire, and that he promised that this would stop, and that he would punish people who did it. What's happened in the last four or five days, and what's this current situation with the refugees?

BILL RICHARDSON: Well, Kabila made a commitment to me that he would allow a full investigation by U.N. agencies; that he wouldn't have deadlines in some of the repatriation of refugees.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: These are refugees that would go back to- -we should just remind people--Hutus--

BILL RICHARDSON: That's right.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: --that left Rwanda and now want to go back to Rwanda in many cases.

BILL RICHARDSON: That he would punish those soldiers that were involved in some of the transgressions. I think there's strong evidence that there have been these massacres. There should be a full investigation. Kabila, in my judgment, does not control all of his troops. Now that doesn't excuse him, but we should press him very hard. He's very sensitive to this criticism that we've got a huge humanitarian crisis that not just needs to be dealt with but will affect him, Kabila, in the future; if he doesn't appear to be handling it in a humane way, he is not going to get help from the international community. In fact, he will become a pariah. I think he realizes this and is pragmatic enough to start dealing with this. If he doesn't, he's going to be a leader without any support once he gets in and makes international appeals.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Well, Mr. Ambassador, thanks for being with us.

BILL RICHARDSON: Thank you very much. FOCUS - ANIMUS - LA PLATA

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Still to come on the NewsHour a western water project fight; Shields & Gigot; and modern mothers. The water project is in Western Colorado. Tom Bearden has that story.

TOM BEARDEN: Mark Twain put it best: "In the West whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting." This particular fight is over the water in two rivers: the Animus and the La Plata, a fight nearly a century old. The rivers flow through mountains, farms, and two Indian reservations. The moisture they deliver makes it possible to grow forage, raise cattle, and live in the towns along their banks. The problem is that the low-flowing Le Plata is anything but reliable. Sometimes it practically dries up. Bob Taylor is a farmer who lives near Red Mesa, Colorado.

BOB TAYLOR, Farmer: This Le Plata River is a very irregular river. Like last year, it ran very little water at all, and then there are years when the snow pack will fill it up, and we'll get a lot of water. And--but you can't base an agricultural economy on that type of irregularity.

TOM BEARDEN: So the farmers turned to Washington for help and began trying to negotiate an obstacle course. The journey has lasted 40 years and is likely to last for years yet to come. They persuaded Congress to authorize a feasibility study for a massive water storage project that would make the Le Plata reliable. It came to be called the Animus Le Plata Project because it would transfer water from the larger Animus to the Le Plata. The idea is to construct a pumping station along the banks of the Animus near the town of Durango. It would pump water over a ridge and fill a valley on the back side. Eventually, the water would be transferred to the Le Plata and then to the farmers and to the Indian reservation. It came from the same mold as the other big western water projects built by the Bureau of Reclamation during the Great Depression. The massive dams and giant reservoirs were considered public works projects in the best interest of the entire country because they made it possible to settle the Columbia River Basin and the desert Southwest. But every time the project seemed about to start construction there would be a new hurdle to jump. The first barrier arose when political support for water projects began to dry up in Washington. In the 1960's people began to question whether the needs of western farmers and cities justified the enormous cost to all American taxpayers. But then in 1976, two Indian tribes, whose reservations the rivers flowed through, made a claim that shed a whole new light on the need for a water project. They said the treaties gave them the rights to all the water in both rivers. That meant no water for anyone else. Supporters of Animus Le Plata have pointed out the only way to satisfy the Indians and other users was to increase the water supply; that is, build the water project. The Indians liked the idea and over the next 10 years a compromise among water users was hammered out. The Indians gave up their claims in return for a promise of water from the project. Clement Frost is the chairman of the Southern Ute tribe. He says the original agreement was a model of how to balance competing claims.

CLEMENT FROST, Southern Ute Tribal Chairman: We sat down with all entities, farmers, cities, both New Mexico Water Conservancy Districts, from both Colorado and New Mexico. We sat down. We said, this is how much I want, this is how much I want; you'll get this; you'll get that; you can't have that; you can't have this. I mean, we all talked about it. We shared the vision of how to utilize this water.

TOM BEARDEN: The settlement was signed by the U.S. Government, and after disposing of a few environmental objections, the Bureau of Reclamations staged a groundbreaking ceremony in 1991.

SEN. BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL, [R] Colorado: Certainly this is an historic event, and perhaps the last of the great federally- funded water projects, and it has been a long time in coming.

TOM BEARDEN: But there would be new hurdles to overcome because the environmentalists jeering then Congressman--now Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell were about to gain the upper hand. They took the project to federal court, claiming it violated environmental laws, and won several decisions that stopped construction. Maggie Fox is the water specialist for the Sierra Club.

MAGGIE FOX, The Sierra Club: We're talking about endangered fish species problems. We're talking about the loss of elk habitat. We're talking about recreational opportunities in terms of river rafting, fishing, all sorts of different uses of the river are all lost if this project were built.

TOM BEARDEN: And then a new and even more massive roadblock appeared--concern over the federal budget deficit. Republican Congressman John Kasich decided just as Congress had gotten rid of welfare as an entitlement for the poor, it needed to rid the budget of what he called "corporate welfare." Animus Le Plata was at the top of his hit list. Surrounding him were representatives of groups that had often opposed Republican policies, the environmentalists.

REP. JOHN KASICH, [R] Ohio: What we have been able to do is to bring together organizations on Capitol Hill that, frankly, have never really been brought together before who have sat down and interests of serving their country have put together a list of items that represent significant changes in corporate welfare in another step to end welfare as we know it.

TOM BEARDEN: The anti-Animus barrage was joined by Oregon Democratic Congressman Peter DeFazio. He plans to reintroduce legislation that passed the House last year deauthorizing Animus Le Plata.

REP. PETER DeFAZIO, [D] Oregon: The project that's currently proposed is just an outrage. It's a boondoggle. If this project is going to go forward, we have to waive all environmental laws. And I don't think that this administration or this Congress is about to do that. So what we're doing is just wasting money year after year on a project that isn't going to go forward, hoping that Ronald Reagan and James Watt will come back and waive all the environmental laws, and they can build a giant 1950's water project that doesn't make sense.

TOM BEARDEN: But supporters of the project say Kasich and his allies are wrong. Bob Taylor scoffs at the idea that the project will benefit big corporations.

BOB TAYLOR: We're a--we're a family partnership, farm partnership. We're not a corporation.

TOM BEARDEN: He says there are no corporate farms anywhere in the area, only small family operations, and Pat Schumacher, who runs the Bureau of Reclamation Office in Durango, insists the project will only cost 1/3 of what the opponents are claiming and will actually return money to the Treasury. Far from being a boondoggle, he thinks Animus Le Plata guarantees the economic future of the entire region.

PAT SCHUMACHER, Bureau of Reclamation: There's a dire need both for irrigation water and municipal industrial water in this area. The cities and the areas around the cities, the Durango, Farmington, Aztec, are all experiencing pretty rapid growth.

TOM BEARDEN: But Maggie Fox says it's only the Indian issues that are keeping Animus Le Plata alive.

MAGGIE FOX: If this were a regular water project, it would be dead. It would be past dead. It would be buried. It would have died a number of years ago, at least a decade ago, and we would not even be at this table. I mean, the environmental groups, these taxpayer groups, the citizen groups that are here are here for one reason, and that is because we believe these tribes have valid water rights and that for whatever reasons, they have put all of their hope and trust into this project.

TOM BEARDEN: Environmentalists think they can defeat the project if they can prove that the Indian tribes won't really benefit from Animus Le Plata, removing what they believe is the last barrier to killing the project entirely. They stress that tribes won't get their water until Phase two, which will have to be funded by state or private moneys that may never actually become available. Most Indian leaders are willing to trust they will get the water someday, but some, like Chairman Clement Frost's brother, Ray, are not.

RAY FROST, Southern Ute: It is not an Indian water project. How it's going to benefit us at this point in time is not really--is nonexistent, in other words.

TOM BEARDEN: Ray Frost thinks the Indians should forget Animus Le Plata and press their original claim in court: all the water in both rivers. Colorado Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell, a native American, warns that such a lawsuit could be more costly than the water project, itself, and that if the Indians win their case, the backlash could be enormous.

SEN. BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL: It's estimated that over 1/4 of non-Indian farmland will have to come out of production to satisfy the Indian claims. If you think that's not going to create a white backlash, you're sadly mistaken. Who do you think all those white ranchers that are going to lose their water rights--who do you think they're going to sue? They're all going to sue the federal government for taking away their water.

TOM BEARDEN: The state is trying to broker a compromise among the Indians, environmentalists, and farmers.

SPOKESPERSON: But I can say one thing. I will continue to fight for the rights of my people.

TOM BEARDEN: And Sen. Campbell is still pushing hard in Congress.

SEN. BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL: If these current so-called consensus negotiations end in an impasse, which I think they're going to do, will the administration and you continue to support that project as it's currently configured, which was the agreement of 1988?

BRUCE BABBITT, Secretary of the Interior: Senator, if and when that happens, I will undoubtedly be back to discuss this more. I am not going to opine about a contingency on behalf of an administration of which I am one piece only.

TOM BEARDEN: In the end, what happens to Animus Le Plata may have a lot more to do with the fight in Washington over balancing the federal budget than with the rights of Indians and the needs of farmers in Colorado. FOCUS - POLITICAL WRAP

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Now our Friday night political analysis and to Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER: And we get that analysis from our NewsHour regulars syndicated columnist Mark Shields and "Wall Street Journal" columnist Paul Gigot. Welcome back. Let's talk about the budget deal and what's happening to it. Paul, after the euphoria of last Friday, they came up with this budget deal. Now the President and the Republican leadership seem to have very different views of what they agreed to. I mean, is this serious?

PAUL GIGOT, Wall Street Journal: Was there a budget deal? I have a hard time remembering after this week. I mean, this is a week that shows you that the time to really pay attention on Washington is when everybody claims to agree because that's when you really have to find out what's going on. It was fascinating to just call the White House and talk about the fine print, talk to the Republicans and ask about the fine print--you get two different stories, not on everything. The numbers, the big picture holds. The outline--the overall numbers in the budget and the categories hold, but the details of what's going to go in it, very different. For example, what form are the Medicare changes going to take place? Everyone agrees it will be $115 billion less spent on Medicare than otherwise would have, still a lot more, less than it would have. But is it going to be--are the changes and the savings going to come from price controls on doctors, hospitals, HMO's, that sort of thing, which is what the Democrats in the White House wants, nor is it going to be through changing the nature of the Medicare program to introduce competition and choice, and the private entities, and what the Republicans want. That's a huge philosophical difference. I think those are the kinds of disputes you're going to have, so there's going to be a lot more shouting before this thing is over.

MARGARET WARNER: But, Mark, was this a basic misunderstanding by all of us as to what this deal was about, or did each side think they had won the other one over on these policy issues?

MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist: I think both sides were interested in declaring a victory, Margaret, more than anything else. I was reminded watching this come unglued a little bit this week, unglued is too strong, but the differences and difficulties emerging, the wisdom of two great American legislative giants. "Mo" Udall, the congressman from Arizona, once said, when you find something that everybody agrees on, you can be sure of one thing; that it's wrong. And I think that was what started in this week, and Bob Dole, the Republican from Kansas, said that when something sits around here for a while on Capitol Hill, it starts to get stale because people start reading it. And I think the point that Paul makes is people started reading it, reading the agreement and figuring out how it's going to go. And I think there are problems. We've still got 13 appropriations bills. We've got two separate tax bills, the tax bill, itself, and the Medicare cuts that Paul mentioned. We're a long, long way from this being resolved.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, Paul, with the Republican ranks, there even seems to be some disagreement--say over what the tax cuts are going to look like. Is the problem ideological, or is it these chairmen who were saying, no one's going to tell me how I'm going to write my bill, or my piece of this?

PAUL GIGOT: Well, you don't get to be--you don't wait for about 25 years to become Ways & Means chairman, which Bill Archer of Texas has waited, and then have somebody in the leadership tell you they're going to write your tax bill for you. So just forget about it; it's not going to happen. Dan Rostenkowski would never have let it happen, and Bill Archer is not going to let it happen. Nonetheless, as part of the agreement, the White House--there's $135 billion--a lot of money over five years for tax cuts--the White House says $35 billion of that is ours, and it's ours for the tuition tax credit for years 13 and 14 of college, okay. The Republicans said, well, we'll give you that $35 billion but we didn't guarantee to your tax credit, so the details are something- -

MARGARET WARNER: Just the money in there.

PAUL GIGOT: The money in there. But we're going to write the actual credit. Well, the White House says, wait a minute, you agreed to our bill; that's the nature of the dispute. And the other thing that's going to happen here is that the Republicans are going to begin to fight among themselves because $135 billion over five years I think is puny, and you've got to put in different tax cuts for different Republican constituents. The social conservatives want a family tax credit. The economic conservatives want a capital gains tax cut. The National Federation of Independent Businesses, small businesses, they want the estate tax limit raised. So out of all that pot of money you've got to divide up the spoils. It's going to be very hard for the Republicans to do, and that's before you start arguing with Bill Clinton.

MARGARET WARNER: Want to weigh on--

MARK SHIELDS: Well, I just think--I think there's a certain grumbling on the part of some Republicans and that is that they feel, my gosh, Clinton's done it to us again, I mean, that we went in and we ended up and we're going to end up fighting; it's going to be a civil war in a leper colony among Republicans over the very issues that have been outlined.

PAUL GIGOT: Mark's a goodfriend--

MARK SHIELDS: And I think that the prime responsibility has to be on the family tax credit. I mean, that has been--

MARGARET WARNER: For the Republican leadership.

MARK SHIELDS: For the Republicans. You know, obviously they'll make the case that you've got to at least cut capital gains-- something--the President is supposedly on board on that, and then on the Democratic side you've got a lot of grumbling on the part of labor and House liberals who are saying, wait a minute, you've just given away the store on redistribution, this is rewarding those who need it the least, namely the well off in our society, with capital gains tax cuts, state tax cuts, only 2 percent of all Americans ever have any estate tax levied, and we're not talking about people--mom and pop stores or somebody who's carrying a lunch bucket every day. And so that's a part of the concern that's being expressed, so the grumbling is setting in, and the question is how serious it'll be.

MARGARET WARNER: The other thing I was wondering as I watched Trent Lott give his daily news conference today, and he was complaining about the White House, it made false claims, and meanwhile, Frank Raines, the budget chief at the White House, was making sort of--somewhat disparaging comments about the Republicans. Is bad faith developing here at all?

PAUL GIGOT: Well, I think that there's some real--they all went away without having the fine print written, and now they're fighting over it. I don't know that there's bad faith being accused. I mean, there's--there's a little bit of constituency politics being played on each side in that they're trying to appease some of the people in their own camp. The problem with this budget, I think, overall is that it's a kind of truce based on weakness. Neither side has a great deal of confidence, political or intellectual, coming out of '96, so what they're trying to do is they basically called the truce, and they're going to ratify the size of government we have, more or less, and agree to get something done, in their words, but the people who are unhappy with this are on either side of either party. The Democrats who want to grow the government are unhappy because this doesn't do it too much, and the Republicans want to cut the government, who want to really devolve power and do what the Contract with America said in 1995; they're unhappy; and those sides are now being muted, but they're going to come out before this is over.

MARK SHIELDS: Let me just--let me say the issue here, it isn't a question of size of government. It's a question who pays, and if you're going to start taking Medicare recipients, if you're going to start--the Medicaid cuts are already in there for those who are least able to pay it.

PAUL GIGOT: Very little.

MARK SHIELDS: But we're talking--but that, in fact, is where cuts are going to be made. I think you're going to have a real debate on this. There's no question about it. I mean, we're talking about the re-distributive effect of tax changes, as well as spending changes, Margaret. And we went through a decade and we just completed a decade, 1980 to 1990, where 92 percent of the growth went to top fifth of the population. There is--income disparity is growing. It's more acute than it was in this country 20 years ago. It's getting worse every year, so, you know, the question, it's going to become, and it's going to be heard over and over again, who pays, who's hurt, and what's the fair and just thing for all involved?

MARGARET WARNER: Paul, does coming to this budget deal clear the decks, though,for action on other issues? I mean, this Congress had been accused of not doing much in its first four months, and partly, they were paralyzed over this budget quandary. Are we going to see a burst of activity and, if so, on what?

PAUL GIGOT: Oh, I don't think so. I mean, I think that, in fact, the fact that they will agree--let's say they agree in the end on a budget and these differences were in the end agreed to--

MARGARET WARNER: Thrashed out.

PAUL GIGOT: Thrashed out and we get a budget--I think it's more likely that they're going to fight over other things, because what this budget means is that the leader of the Democratic Party, President Clinton, and the Republicans in Congress agreed more or less for now on fiscal policy. So what else are you going to fight about? Foreign policy, but the Republicans are going to agree on NATO, more or less; there will be some disputes in China, but not- -

MARGARET WARNER: NATO expansion.

PAUL GIGOT: --NATO expansion, some disputes on China, so what are you going to fight about? I think you're going to fight about social policy; you're going to fight about the role of religion in public life, scholarships for black, inner-city, poor, white, black kids in inner-cities, and can they go to public or private schools, that's going to be the issue. School prayer is going to be an issue, abortion. Those things are going to be issues because that's what's left to fight about. I mean, you have both parties still very different positions on a lot of these values issues, and I think those will begin to come to the fore if we have a truce now on fiscal policy.

MARGARET WARNER: Where do you think the action is going to be?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, Margaret, now that we've got the budget behind us, the balanced budget, we can really get onto--there is no--there is no agenda. Neither party has an agenda. We have two leaders, President Clinton and Speaker Gingrich, both who are hobbled, more or less, as the leaders of the party in different ways, the President less so than the speaker, but neither one commands his troops at this point for historical, as well as political, reasons. The Republicans have never really, in my judgment, come back from the reality of the end of the Cold War, and the Republicans had such an advantage on national security matters, on national defense matters, they could show that they were the guys with the tatoos who wanted to go out in the parking lot and punch out your lights, and all of a sudden, in the absence of that in the vacuum intruded issues like the environment and education, Medicare, and that became a problem. But I don't see either party, quite frankly, with an agenda in 1997. Nobody's going to get a parade permit over deregulation; nobody's going to get a parade permit over infrastructure building. The only issue that's captured any imagination, got any excitement going, is Orrin Hatch and Ed Kennedy's increasing the tobacco tax to pay for children's health care who can't--whose families can't afford it.

PAUL GIGOT: That excitement's, you know, reduced, you know, rooms on Capitol Hill. I don't know if this is sweeping the nation.

MARK SHIELDS: Well, I think it's the only way they're going to get people excited to the point where they'd go up on Capitol Hill and knock on doors.

MARGARET WARNER: And Newt Gingrich gave a speech yesterday, I think it was to the religious broadcasters, his agenda was very soft, very--I mean, it was drug free kids and better education. I mean, it wasn't the Newt Gingrich of old, was it, Paul?

PAUL GIGOT: Well, I think his budget deal is a tacit admission by the Republicans that they're willing to give up on some of their agenda in order to stay in power because they want--they get the President's signature and his agreement on some things that they think hurt them like Medicare. I think it didn't hurt them nearly as much as they do, but they believe it, and so--and so they're going to mute some of these other agenda items.

MARGARET WARNER: Before we go, just a quick comment from both of you on the news today that the Republican National Committee is going to overturn some 102,000 in illegal foreign contributions. What's the significance of that?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, the significance is--

MARGARET WARNER: The first time.

MARK SHIELDS: It's a little bit like the piano player in the house of ill repute. They just found out what was going on upstairs. I mean, it's been going on upstairs, it's been going on upstairs in both parties, the use of soft money. We're talking about not only $102,000; we're talking about an expatriate, a man who gave up his American citizenship, who was ushered into the highest positions of power by the chairman of the Republican National Committee, another $500,000 already owed to the Republican Party, could get a $1.6 million windfall, that this man secured a loan for $2.2 million, the man they returned $102,000 to illegally. So I think it means that the hearings will be bigger; they'll be more important; all the subpoenas have already gone out and Fred Thompson's, I think it's going to force Dan Burton on the House side to expand his to include Republicans.

PAUL GIGOT: I don't think it's going to have that big an impact. They're already--Republicans were already going to be investigated. What this does, though, is it gives the Democrats a talking point for what was their only defense here, and that is everybody does it, moral equivalence. We may be sleazy; they're just as sleazy as we are. And this is one case which looks pretty sleazy. You've got a case where foreign money looks like it was laundered through an American shell corporation by someone to the Republicans, and that's wrong. But there's still a long way to go between $3 million returned so far by the Democrats and $100,000 by the Republicans; there's a difference still in kind and degree.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. And we have no way to go anymore. Thanks, Paul and Mark. FINALLY - JUGGLING ACT

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Finally on this Friday before Mother's Day motherhood in the 90's. In a moving speech on the Senate floor today 79-year-old Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia proved he's aware of how things have changed since he was a boy. Here's an excerpt.

SEN. ROBERT BYRD, [D] West Virginia: I often stop to marvel at the many young mothers who work in my own office and in the various Senate offices and throughout the government and the nation-- poised, cool, and professional at work. One might never suspect that after work they must still dash to the daycare center, race home, feed husbands and children, spend quality time with the family, buy groceries, do the laundry, clean the house, and be back at the office the next morning to begin the cycle all over again. And so I take my hat off to all working mothers. As we honor mothers this weekend, they maintain a heroic pace and the nation owes them a debt that can never be paid.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And for more on modern motherhood here's an excerpt from a PBS Mother's Day Special. The reporter is Ray Suarez of National Public Radio.

RAY SUAREZ, National Public Radio: It's rush hour. Womenare hustling to work, women giving it their all on the job, picking up kids at daycare, and starting their night-side chores amid the children who crave their company. For decades, women have coped with their endless days, letting society postpone the hard work of changing the rules. Men are around. A lot of them would even get a pretty good grade from their mates on the work they do in raising their children. But the expectations are different. When we followed three Boston area mothers, all three married women, they told the stories of their days. They left no question as to where the burden of juggling home and work still falls after decades of change. There's new opportunity and the same old routine.

CONNIE GREEN: And I just get up and start getting myself dressed. And then I'll get--my oldest daughter is usually the first one I'll get up and get my second daughter up and then the boy.

RAY SUAREZ: Connie Green is a counselor, has four children from nine to sixteen years old.

CONNIE GREEN: Hello, Missy. You look handsome.

RAY SUAREZ: If Lekisha, Charlea, Louis, and Immanuel weren't such good kids, it's hard to imagine the intricately timed morning routine working day after day.

CONNIE GREEN: Usually I'll have the boys take their showers the night before, so the girls pretty much have the bathroom in the morning. We have breakfast, and then I get my sons to school.

CONNIE GREEN: [talking to son] Louis, Louis!

REVA KLEIN: My alarm clock is Jacob, and he usually starts calling, "Ma, ma" about 5:30, 6 o'clock.

RAY SUAREZ: Reva Klein is a neurologist. Jacob and Sam are two and four. And now Reva realizes how valuable every moment she spends with them is to her and to the boys.

REVA KLEIN: Their personalities are very different. So Jacob you can set him up with his breakfast and he'll watch TV. Sam, it's constant attention. You have to keep--you know, the cereal has too much milk, not enough milk, not the right kind of cereal. He didn't want that kind of juice. It's pretty rushed. I have to leave by 7:30 really to get to work on time. So there's a sense of urgency and constantly trying to balance everything to keep on track what I need to do, get my lunch ready, get the kids' breakfast made, get together what I need for work. I try to do a lot of that the night before.

REVA KLEIN: Okay, guys.

RAY SUAREZ: A few towns away, Leslie Czwakiel is home with her 14-month-old daughter. After a short maternity leave, she tried to go back to full-time work as a college financial aid administrator, a job that required night work.

LESLIE CZWAKIEL: Daycare providers around here don't work evenings for the most part, and it would have been a real juggling act, and my husband's position as an associate in a law firm doesn't give him any flexibility either.

RAY SUAREZ: Three mothers faced with the need to make it work in a culture that hasn't quite figured it all out. Connie Green sticks with a full-time job that offers her some flexibility--counseling pregnant teens and young mothers at a Boston high school for a social service agency. Reva Klein knew that in neurology a full- time job is a job and a half, 60 hours or more a week. She tried it and knew it wouldn't work for her, so she's cobbled together two part-time jobs--one at a Veterans Administration Hospital--

REVA KLEIN: [talking to patient] Touch my hand here.

RAY SUAREZ: Then she heads off to a nursing home for consulting at the end of another 45-minute drive.

REVA KLEIN: It's hard. I often feel torn. Right now I'm working a little bit more than I would liketo. It would be nice to have one full day that I'm at home to kind of catch up on paying the bills, the doctors' appointments, and spending a full day with the kids.

RAY SUAREZ: And Leslie Czwakiel, once sure she could do it all, is home after finding work she enjoyed wasn't a match for the struggle against an inflexible work schedule.

LESLIE CZWAKIEL: A mom doesn't get a break either which way. If she works, everybody start--you know, there's always that crowd harping on you about, you know, your child is the greatest thing you ever brought into this world and you're not there to nurture it--blah, blah, blah, blah. Then you stay at home, and everybody tells you, oh, but you wasted all this money on this education, and you're so bright and you're so capable, and you're letting that die.

RAY SUAREZ: In all three cases the women have faced stretching and bending and squeezing to fit home to work and home to work because the systems aren't already there, waiting in the workplace. The transformation of the American work force is just about complete. The U.S. Census Bureau says that by the year 2005, eight out of ten American kids below the age of twelve will have mothers who work. So the real question is: What's going to be out there for those mothers and their children? Bradley Googins studies business and family policies worldwide.

BRADLEY GOOGINS, Boston College: We have a situation where we've entered a new stage both for family life and work life, et cetera, but we haven't caught up, I think, in terms of how can we sustain this level of activity without driving all of us to over-stressed lives or whatever.

ROSALIND BARNETT, Radcliffe College: We have ghettoized the issue of families as a women's and children's issue, pushed it aside, and then it's really easy to ignore it. It's really a parenting issue, men and women and children, and once it's cast up that way, it's much harder to ignore.

RAY SUAREZ: But Professor Barnett rejects the twin media images of modern motherhood--women as either at home and satisfied, or working, hassled, and stressed to the limit. She says the reality is more subtle. Women do struggle to keep it all going, and they do want to work.

ROSALIND BARNETT: It's a message that hasn't been widely disseminated; that women who are employed derive not only their paycheck, which is important, but the challenge of work, the sense of using your abilities, the collegiality of working with other people, there's a lot about being in the workplace that is--that women enjoy; even women who have objectively really poor jobs will tell you that they really like or even love their work.

RAY SUAREZ: So here we are, America, on one of the last Mother's Day weekends of the 20th century. The expected changes in the world of work haven't all come. Mothers are a little pushed, a little tired, handling it, but still waiting for society to catch up. So finally, some Mother's Day wishes:

CONNIE GREEN: My wish for mothers is to be good to yourself, not to--to beat up on yourself, to enjoy your kids, enjoy your children's growth. Whatever decision that you choose, be happy with it.

REVA KLEIN: And don't worry about what your mother thinks, your sister thinks, or what society thinks, and think about what's best for you personally and what's best for your children. Make the decision and then relax with it.

LESLIE CZWAKIEL: Happy Mother's Day to my mom, I love her very much, and to all my girlfriends that in the last year, all of us had our first daughters, first children, and it was all daughters, and that we all can teach them well to love themselves.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: That report is from the PBS Mother's Day Special that airs later tonight or on Mother's Day, Sunday, on most Public Television Stations. Check your local listings. RECAP

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Again, the major stories of this Friday, U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson said on the NewsHour he believes a transition is in the works to end the fighting in Zaire; a former POW began his duties in Hanoi as the first post-war U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam; and a Kansas body shop owner identified Timothy McVeigh as the man who rented a truck from him in April, 1995. That truck was used to blow up the Oklahoma City Federal Office Building two days later. We'll be with you on-line and again here Monday evening. Have a nice weekend. I'm Elizabeth Farnsworth. Thank you and good night.